The present invention relates generally to the field of computer programming, and more particularly to techniques for inserting commentary text into computer files.
A comment is a computer programming language construct used to insert annotations into a computer code, in particular, the source code of a computer program. Comments are readable to programmers but are ignored by compilers and interpreters during execution of the program. Comments are inserted by programmers for a variety of reasons including to summarize a program or a particular section of code, to explain a programmer's intent, and to inform other programmers of who authored the program.
Each programming language has a specifically defined convention in which comments must be formatted. Comment conventions typically vary for each of the several languages, as well as for various file types even within the same language. Further, within each programming language there may be multiple variations, or styles, of comments that may be used by programmers. Comment conventions typically utilize one or more special characters at the beginning of a comment line, and comment conventions for some languages additionally utilize special characters at the end of a comment.